GEORGIA O’KEEFFE IN MADRID
First Major Retrospective in Spain
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) was one of the leading figures of 20th-century art in America. The beautiful Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid is hosting the first-ever retrospective of the artist in Spain. The show, featuring 90 works, explores O’Keeffe’s entire career, from her as a young rule-breaking artistic genius to some of her most renowned works later in her career.
Georgia O’Keeffe was born in 1887 and grew up near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She was one of the few female representatives of the American avant-garde during the first half of the 20th century and one of the most influential artists of that century. O’Keefe studied traditional painting at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York. Still, she never felt motivated by this painting style and knew that she would never reach her full potential by simply imitating the old masters. In 1915 she decided to shove aside her traditional training and embark on her artistic journey. She began working with charcoal and in black and white, refusing to incorporate color into her pieces until she was sure that she had found her style. When she was a young painter beginning to gain recognition, Alfred Stieglitz, a married photographer, and art promoter, was shown a sample of her work. He was so impressed by it that he exhibited it at the 291 Gallery without her permission. After O’Keeffe confronted him about this, they began exchanging letters and poems until she eventually moved to New York in 1918 and married him years later. Both artists became each other’s biggest inspirations, and O’Keeffe was at the center of some of Stieglitz’s most incredible work. She spent her whole life making art, even hiring several assistants in her nineties to help her continue. During this time, O’Keefe was primarily creating from her imagination, as she had lost most of her sight. She died in 1986 at the age of 98.
O’Keeffe was revolutionary for blurring the line between figuration and abstraction. The exhibition opens with works that caused a significant impact in New York towards the end of the second decade of the 20th century. It was followed by projects that outlined her entire career. Her use of color and shape to capture flowers and natural and urban landscapes make her work instantly recognizable.
This exhibition (which opened on April 20 and runs through August 8, 2021) is of particular importance due to the surprising lack of representation of O’Keeffe’s work outside of America. It is the perfect opportunity for someone unfamiliar with her work to discover it, as well as for an admirer to immerse themselves in it fully. More than 35 museums from all over the world, a large part of them from the US, have contributed works to make this show possible, including the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, the Milwaukee Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, and San Francisco Museum of Modern art, among others. After Madrid, the exhibition will travel to the Centre Pompidou in Paris and to the Fondation Beyeler in Basel.
